demand management is king

we all use words, sometimes in business context, sometimes in tec one, sometimes casual, friendly sometimes hard and direct without being frankly. So we allow us and words to switch context but what we often fail is to mean the same. This is core reason why a lot of projects start to fail, loosing interest or getting politically killed.

There is definitely a difference in meaning, understanding and expectation between the requestor and the fulfillment part, it’s all time an agreement, either internally or externally. If you cannot manage your demands properly you will either fail to step upwards or you will likely rotten your external partners. The core question is, who’s reliable for getting things sorted correctly before the project starts? And – what I have seen – the often special words and acronyms are used, the more often people start talking about different issues/behaviours and understandings.

I definitely believe that you cannot say party x or y is responsible for getting things sorted out correctly before. Either it is business and time pressure not allowing you to do appropriate demand management or the other party is not willing to invest too much time and effort or political and hidden agendas.

You can start a very simple query: ask colleagues within your office whether they can do you a favor (not specifying which one) or ask them to do project management for you. Both are not defined correctly but both words are well-known. You will get a lot for from your colleagues but definitely not the way you wanted it to be.

The key to success is to use another 5 minutes within the agreement and define some positive and negative boundaries like: I want you to do project management for me, this includes tracking, risk management, documenting … but I do not want you to do all the financial stuff.

The better the fulfillment party asks or the better the requestor is able to define the better will be the success of the project, even with or without a contract with whatever clauses.

So start early by adopting a proper demand management process. You will not need an armada of employees doing requirements and demand engineering but you will need some general rules like:

the project only starts if the task is proper defined and positive and negative boundaries exist

at least 2 measurable KPIs for the goals exist

there is a mutual agreement of both parties that they understand the others needs

Some methodologies like scrum try to do so, this is quite good to know, but we need a general understanding and culture of demand management within the organisation.

If you want to know when to start: If not already in place start NOW. It is not a question of size, revenue or whatever, it is a question of respectful working with others to define clearly your expectations and goals. Start training your 3rd parties by delivering clear and distinct expectations and goals and accept the money you have to pay for, writing less but expecting more isn’t the way you can go for a long.